Attendance falls within the misconduct guidelines but again it has to be proven that there was willful misconduct. As an employer, you train an employee and spend time and effort on them. You expect them to come to work everyday. The reason that you hire them is because you have work that needs to be done. When the interviewer considers tardiness or missing days as your reason for being terminated, they will want to know why you missed the last day prior to your termination. If the reason you missed work or was late is out of your control, you may receive benefits even with a history of being late or absent. Do not use descriptive words to speak of your absenteeism like often or many. Make sure you talk about how much you liked your job and how you were very good at it. You can say you were late in the past but leave it at that statement.

Focus on the other portions of your job. You have already established that you had been late before, but let them know you had been working on it and doing well up to the point that the last occurrence happened which was out of your control. Generally illness, emergencies and car problems are a good justification for missing work. It has to have been your intention to show up for work and something out of your control stopped you from doing so.